


Five Times Stacker Pentecost Felt Like a Failure of a Father...

by hiddencait



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Found Families, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 20:40:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7329922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiddencait/pseuds/hiddencait
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>...and one time he knew he got it right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Stacker Pentecost Felt Like a Failure of a Father...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



**Five Times Stacker Felt Like a Failure of a Father …**

_Rice_

Stacker considered himself an adequate cook most days. Certainly one who should, by all accounts, be capable of mastering a single rice cooker in an attempt to prepare some of the meals Mako would find comforting and familiar. While rice for breakfast was far from something he was used to, he was more than willing to get used to it for his new ward.

Unfortunately, as yet, he’d managed to scorch the rice cooker twice, serve utterly uncooked rice once, and gave up and scrambled an egg every day for a week.

This did not bode well. On the upside, Mako seemed to find it funny, giggling for the first time since she’d arrived at the apartment. 

It wouldn’t have hurt so much if she hadn’t seemed so shocked to hear herself make the simple, gleeful sound. 

_Language_

There was communication, and then there was communication. In light of the language spoken by his new ward, Stacker wasn’t sure he was managing either. Mako knew a little English before she’d come to live with him as she’d learned it in primary school. So she could understand a bit of what Stacker said to her in his own language, and could usually make her needs and wants known.

It was the rest of the time after “usually” that was causing the problem. 

Stacker was trying, fucking hell, was he ever trying, but learning Japanese was coming anything but easily to him. Herc made jokes about old dogs and new tricks, but Stacker had rarely felt as old or as useless as he did when trying to parse out what his adopted daughter needed at 0300, her tired little voice slurring the words he already struggled to understand. 

His accent wasn’t any better than his grasp on the vocabulary, either. Were Mako a more mischievous child, he didn’t doubt she’d be mocking him at every turn.

Instead, she tried in her quiet way to help him, repeating words and phrases correctly after he butchered them. 

Bless her, but that made him feel even worse. 

_Shoes_

It took over a month before he figured out the cause of Mako’s quiet distress upon arriving home to their tiny apartment every day. In retrospect, he should have known better. He’d stayed at proper inns in Hokkaido before: he should have remembered how gauche wearing one’s “outside” shoes indoors was.

When he finally remembered himself, he resolved to rectify the situation. Upon discovery of the tiny slippers in her favorite blue, Mako forgot herself long enough to throw her arms around him and hug him fiercely.

It was the first time she’d done so. He had to excuse himself for a moment so she wouldn’t see the sudden tears. 

_Vacation_

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to take the time off. 

He’d had the trip scheduled for months, complete with a calendar Mako was crossing out dates on leading up to their transport arriving. Disney World might be the most Americanized of the mouse sponsored amusement parks, but it was the one she’d chosen, shy eyes bright as she pointed it out, barely containing her squeal of delight when he’d told her that yes, they absolutely could go during his next scheduled leave. 

They were supposed to make a week of it, complete with everything from a junior engineer day at Epcot to a princess tea party with all the sparkly dressed cast members as possible. Mako was equally thrilled by the thought of both of those excursions in particular, and Stacker had girded his loins and practiced his “patient fatherly smile” in the mirror so many times his face hurt.

He was ready. She was ready. Disney World was ready.

Sadly, so was a kaiju. The day they planned to leave, less than an hour before, the alarms sounded, calling all PPDC personnel to arms as a Cat III approached the California coast.

The battle was short, but the cleanup took days, the long ones he hated most particularly since losing his stint as a pilot.

By the time things calmed down as much as they ever did, the calendar was nowhere to be seen and Mako didn’t bring up Disney World again for several months.

They made it eventually. He made sure of it. But he couldn’t help but think his daughter’s smile was a bit more forced than it might otherwise have been. 

_Boys_

He didn’t mean to scare the boys off. Nor the girls for that matter if they’d meant to come calling. Either or both would have been fine in his books. Granted, Mako kept her preferences rather close to the vest, but it was more due to her shyness than any fear of reprimand from him. 

Stacker had gotten that right at least. Luna and Tamsin would have had his head otherwise. 

But he had few doubts that the fact that so few interested parties came round likely was at least in part related to him. He’d avoided the clichéd “intimidating father” act whenever newcomers dared to accept Mako’s invitation to the apartment, but his profession and fame cast a longer shadow than he preferred. So did Mako’s too for that matter, though usually knowing her name just attracted more of the shallow types.

He’d never understood how people could be more intimidated by him than by Mako herself. She was every bit as formidable as he could dream of being, just as savvy in the program, just as dangerous on the Kwoon floor, and far more intellectual if he did say so himself. 

But time and again he overheard mutters from this tech or that trainee, each of them warning their buddies away from “Pentecost’s darling.” 

If he thought it would make a bit of difference, he’d turn around and tell them just what their cowardice was costing them. It wouldn’t, though. Unless a suitor could see and respect Mako just as she was without any fear of Stacker himself, it was unlikely she’d lose her single status any time soon.

A rather large part of him was ashamed to say he hoped it would be later rather than sooner, just so he could keep his little girl to himself just a bit longer. 

**And One Time He Knew He Got It Right.**

_Cancelling the Apocalypse_

He’d asked the Beckett boy where he’d prefer to die – on the side lines or in a Jaeger where he belonged. Stacker should have known he’d be asking himself the same question. The answer was the same, no matter which pilot he asked.

He wished there was another question, another option, but with the facts as they were, he could not regret his choice.

He’d asked Mako to protect him and the nuke he’d escort into the void. She’d said yes; she’d always said yes to anything he asked of her. 

Instead, he’d be protecting her one last time. He couldn’t regret that, either.

She shined so bright, his brilliant, breathtaking girl. The heart he’d no idea he was missing that long ago day when he found her in a decimated street. She’d win this, she and the Beckett boy who watched her with such awe and respect. At least Stacker knew he wasn’t leaving her alone now, not with a copilot like that by her side. 

No, he didn’t regret a damn thing. How could he with such a legacy left in his wake?


End file.
